It’s particularly prophetic to me for many reason regarding my daughters. My oldest’s allegations were that I drank too much. I really was drinking more than I should have, even prior to my daddy’s passing. My children weren’t neglected, they were actually rather indulged for the most part, not that that makes occasional intoxication acceptable, but I cooked, cleaned, did laundry, paid bills, helped them with homework, loved them, and worked a job. They were old enough to have some regular chores, but I very rarely made them do chores. Most of my first 16 years were doing chores, so I was a sucker for “Momma can I please go to so-n-so’s house even though I’ve not cleaned my room/done the dishes/whatever”. I never wanted my children to remember their childhood and teen years as missing out on fun because of chores.

But I digress… I suppose I want to make excuses and justifications and prove that I really didn’t drink much more than the average person and yet I also don’t want to sound as though I didn’t sometimes drink more than I should have…once my children were taken care of…because I did drink too much the once or twice a week I had drinks with friends when my teenaged daughter’s were either in bed or at their friends’ houses.Was I a neglectful momma from it? No. Were my children abused? No. Was I a “mean drunk” by any means? HELL NO! But all the same, I definitely overindulged occasionally and I should have put that in check and not excused it merely because my children were still safe and well cared for.

Regardless, after the exorbitantly exaggerated accusations after my dad passed and when I trusted the two narcissists, my mother and my ex” with my kids while I was planning my dad’s funeral, and Lexi had decided from hours of them bashing me for things I never even did as a child, that she “WANTED TO LIVE WITH HER DAD!”, suddenly I was (quite literally) the WORST MOMMA EVER!, an ALCOHOLIC!, and my poor eldest child suddenly claimed she’d been ABUSED/NEGLECTED!!! for years in my care.

Two weeks prior to this, my youngest had dedicated a song to me and left me a note saying she “didn’t know how she’d ever gotten through everything if not for her momma” and my oldest, Lexi, and I had gone for several trips to the beach to discuss life and laugh, and work out her problems with friends at school and boys and her sister…etc, etc… But now, overnight(after only a week of time with her dad and my mother), I’m an abusive, neglectful, alcoholic HORRIBLE person and an even WORSE mother according to Lexi. I’d “LIED TO HER HER ENTIRE LIFE!(still no clue what this lying was)” and I “HADN’T EVEN BEEN A GOOD STUDENT AS A KID !!(I’d been an Honors student from middle school through high school, so I don’t understand this one either).

So…wild accusations start flying a few days after we returned from burying my daddy out of state. Now, Lexi’s calling me a slut and screaming she had “HEARD ME IN MY BEDROOM AT NIGHT HAVING SEX WITH MY FIANCE ALL THE TIME THREE YEARS AGO” and I’m the most vile, awful human being who’s ever lived.

Needless to say, I drank way more for a few months after this ordeal and my daddy was dead and my children had gone to live with their dad. And then, I suddenly felt guilty every time I had anything to drink. I started wondering if I really WAS an alcoholic and maybe couldn’t see it. I went for alcohol counseling and assessment and was turned away because the professionals there determined my habits “did not indicate a dependency on alcohol”. Still, I felt guilty (even with no children in a 2,000 mile radius speaking to me) having anything to drink. I couldn’t use it as an escape as I had before this because I analyzed and criticized myself for ever sip I took.

So, I quit drinking completely for a year. I went to a two week long intensive Christian retreat where I knew they’d criticize my prior drinking whether the “professionals” thought it was a serious problem or not. I confessed all my drinking to these people who believe demons inside us cause these things and they exorcised those demons from me. After two weeks, their assessment was that I suffered from an “unholy level of grief” regarding my childhood, my dad passing, and my children leaving me after making hideous wild untrue accusations.

“Unholy grief”

Ya think? I mean, I didn’t even begin to touch on the two violent rapes I’d endured, the full stroke and paralysis of my left side, my childhood abuse or lack of love in any actual depth, nor my abusive romantic relationship with my children’s father…. Yeah, I’d say I had/have some unresolved “unholy grief” going on pretty much from birth and as a state of being really!

So, I do have a glass of wine once in awhile now still, but it takes me about two weeks to drink a bottle of wine because the guilt and insecurity I feel everytime I try to enjoy a glass is overwhelming. It pretty much has ruined any enjoyment, either actual taste or the numbing of my heartache if I were able to drink a few more than I do.

It doesn’t matter though. Lexi doesn’t want me in her life whether I’m drinking anything at all or not. Which sadly, after my crucifixion for “drinking” is exceedingly unfair. Yet, it also gives me the validation that it was never really about my drinking anyway. She was looking for something to hang me/ hate me for and if she had to lie or grossly exaggerate, she was going to. So, she could care less if I drink ever, every day, or not at all. It was never about my drinking. But, it worked. I’m sober as hell, no matter the constant hurt I can’t escape from day or night, waking or sleeping… I’m fucking sober for every second of it all.

I’ve never used drugs, so I can’t turn to that. And now, I can’t have sex or romantic relationships, I can’t drink wine for a brief warm fuzzy mental escape. Which was my only escape ever in my life, from the pain of it all. Music was another escape I used most of my life and I can’t even enjoy that now. Most music, except classical, I shared my love of it with my children and my daddy. So, music I love now tends to just bring on “unholy grief” and nostalgia that I want to avoid throwing the salt in those wounds…. So, there’s nothing. I literally have no escape of any sort. I’m forced to endure every second of unwanted, abused, unloved, unlovable abandoned, orphaned, and worthless smother, daughter, sister, human being that I am. Every sharp and agonistic, hopeless and un-fixable second of every minute of it. That’s what monsters like me (who don’t understand how or why they’re monsters) deserve, I suppose….?

So, now I’m a lonely old lady all alone with my dog who can’t even enjoy a glass or two of wine. I can’t even give myself permission to drink a bottle of wine and numb my pain/grief/loss/PTSD/etc. even for a few hours. Nope, there’s no momentary numbing of the pain for the unloved, unwanted, and completely abandoned mother/daughter/human being.

I get to feel all the pain. All the time. My children, my mother, and my ex saw to that. There will be NO escape from my pain except death. And I’m pretty sure that’s because they literally all would rather I were dead.

So this song, although clearly intended toward a romantic love that was lost, very much reminds me of the loss of my children and that I’m sober even though I never really had a problem…and that they all saw to it that I would feel EVERY SECOND of the pain from my past, present, and hopeless future, without any reprieve except death.

And I’m working diligently on giving them (and me) that final solution.

Last week was the 3rd anniversary of my daddy’s death. I still struggle so much with the fact that he’s gone. All day, I just cried and begged, “Daddy, take me with you!”.

This made me remember all the times over my lifetime when I felt that way. I pretty much always felt that way and asked every chance I got. For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to just be with my dad…

At 3 When my parents separated, I wanted to go with my dad. At this young tender age, most children can’t stand being away from their mothers. When asked, my 5 year old sister instantly jumped up with “I want to go with you, Mommie!”. This is one of my first memories. I vividly remember wanting to follow suit with my sister and latch onto the natural maternal pull at such a needy age. I know my very first thought was that. I remember the instant I thought to repeat my sister’s desire, I looked at my daddy and just the thought of not being with him created an instant pang of sharp pain in my heart and my gut. Maybe it was the wounded, defeated look on his face? Maybe it was the wise intuition even way back then, that I was extremely unwanted by my mother? Or maybe it was simply that only with my dad have I ever felt safe and loved? I don’t know what my 3 year old brain was thinking for sure but I vividly recall the sharp pain in my heart at the thought of not being with my daddy.

Please can I go with you Daddy?

Of course I was forced to live with my mother eventually. And I saw my dad for occasional weekends when mother permitted. My dad took my sister and I on summer vacations to Cherokee Lake, TN with his boat to visit Aunt Maude and Uncle George and fish on the lake.

I loved these vacations! Except my dad would get up at the crack of dawn to go fishing and I’d wake up with him already gone. I didn’t like that! So every night before bed, I’d ask, “Daddy, are you goin fishin early in the mornin?” Usually my dad would say something funny to direct my thoughts and attention somewhere other than asking to go with him (i chattered to my dad incessantly and played with the minnow bait when he fished… I was not the best to take fishin!). I would know he was avoiding my question with jokes because they were going early to catch fish and I impeded that. So it became like a game between my daddy and me. I’d always ask every night and say, “stop teasing me Daddy and please take me with you in the mornin?”

Please can I go with you Daddy?

Usually, desperate to not miss when he left, I’d try with all my might to stay up all night to catch him leaving and naturally, then I’d oversleep and not wake in time to insist I go…they’d sneak off while I was sleeping and when I’d wake up and see him gone, I’d impatiently wait til he got back shortly and let him know how mad at him I was for not waking me to go with! He’d tease me about something and we’d laugh and I wouldn’t be mad anymore. …just grateful he was already back…

As a teenager, living in Hell and dreaming of being loved and safe, I literally lived for my visits with my dad…brief and random as they were under mother’s strict and fierce control… One time I was having a chat with my dad and I desperately told him, ” nothing can ever happen to you Daddy. If it did, there’d never be anyone to love me or kiss and hug me!” My dad of course said this was silly talk that I was loved by many….

I went through a brief period of time during therapy where I acknowledged I was maybe angry at my dad for not saving me from Mommie dearest . That didn’t last long though. I realize from deep within that truly good people with pure hearts have a hard time recognizing evil. I lived with it and still it took years to convince me it was what it really was. I have the heart of my daddy. How could I ever blame him for not seeing evil when he had not an ounce of evil in him ? Of COURSE he couldn’t see it!

So a few months before his death, he was working on his will and called me to discuss it. I remember exactly where I was sitting when he called about this. As soon as the words came out of his mouth I said (as a grown woman now and single mother to two teen girls), “No daddy! You can’t ever go away! Not EVER! I have to go first or you have to take me with you! I just can’t be in this world without you!!!” And I was sobbing. So, my daddy changed the subject. Of course, he could never stand to hear me cry…

Now, he’s gone and just like those crack of dawn fishin trips he snuck without me, he didn’t take me with him! Only he’s still not back when I wake up in the mornin. I can’t stomp my feet and tell him I’m mad he went fishin without me. He can’t tease me and make it impossible to be even playfully mad at him. This time, he’s just gone.

Shortly after his death and after my children turned against me after his funeral, I went to a Christian retreat to deal with this unbearable pain and loss. I don’t know what I think about these things really, I just know lost people in desperate pain will try about anything , so I went.

There, on the last day, I finally shared my grief and they told me the problem was I had “unholy grief” for my dad and my children. And they prayed over me to rid me of this “unholy grief” and the demons they associated with that specific “evil “.

I was mad at this “diagnosis “! WHAT?!?? I tried to accept it though with the hopes that my pain might subside even a little if they were perhaps right.

It didn’t work. I still ask daily, Daddy, please can I go with you?

Is my grief “unholy”? I know many have painfully lost parents way earlier than I and seem to eventually go on about life and living. Why cant I?